


Born with Scorponok's touch

by Steena



Series: Transformers song inspired fics [3]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Abuse, Blood and Gore, Bloodplay, Cages, Calabrese inspired fics, Chains, Danger, Don't really Know how to Tag, Driving, Escape, F/M, Horror, Horror inspired fic, Hostage Situations, Kidnapping, Love, Manipulation, Mates, Mech/Human Interfacing, Mech/Human Sex, Mentions of Character Death, Mentions of Murder, Murder, My Muse needed to do this, NSFW, Sarah Lennox was cheating, Seduction, Smut, Songfic, Soulmates, Spark Sexual Interfacing, Sparkmates, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Supernatural Elements, Transformers Spark Bonds, Vampires, Violence, Werewolf-hunters, Werewolves, Will Lennox hates Mikaela, Xeno, Xenophilia, kind of poetic, they're made for each other, warnings per chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-03-29 05:18:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13920201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steena/pseuds/Steena
Summary: Without any signs of fear, she reached out and touched it, cutting her finger and drawing a small rivulet of blood. She sucked the sting, never breaking eye to optic contact. His toothy intake moved hungrily, two of his optics following how her lips closed around her finger, the slow movement when she pulled it out of her mouth."You're my kind of poison."Mikaela is taken hostage by the Decepticons, but she isn't just the fleshling she appears to be. Barricade just can't stop staring, and in the end, he just can't leave her to die. Her true nature will forever leave him changed, though...All chapters inspired by Calabrese songs, chapters named after the songs, lyrics in the end notes.





	1. Born with a Scorpion's touch

**Author's Note:**

> Some xeno-sex in here, but not very graphic. A little blood/energon-play. Some violence that's unrelated to the sex-part.

The Interceptor stared down at the human female, a lone spotlight behind her cage the only source of light beside their optics. It made an almost eerie tableaux of their little prisoner. 

She paced the tiny crate they had put her in upon capture, looking less human and more like one of those big cat's at the circus, caught in too small a cage. A predator, constantly checking for a weakness in the bars, waiting for the moment to break free and pounce, to tear into her captors with all the ferocity of an Earthen canine chained up for too long. She looked so alive, like only organics could, yet she was dead.  _She just didn't know it yet._

Barricade could feel the proverbial sledgehammer drawing back to bludgeon Earth into nothing more than a source of energon and slaves to rebuild Cybertron to it's former glory. 

Well, at least it had been glorious to those with a seemingly endless supply of credits. To others... _not so much._  

He had been one of the unfortunates. One of those who rose up to fight for a better functioning. Blinded by belief that Megatron would make everything alright. They had torn their own planet to pieces, Cybertronians were few and far between and still at odds. Other planets had perished under their war, first for the good of Cybertron, but later for Megatron's never sated hunger for power, for dominance, for  _more_. 

Barricade had thought their home would rise from the ashes and dust, shiny and whole and at peace. It _had_  been beautiful, once upon a golden age, however flawed the system had been. 

Now, though... Everything was so broken, he wondered if anything could put the pieces back in a better way and mold a new and beautiful thing of the shards.

He shook his helm. His thoughts were going down _that_  track again, and it was always a downward spiral of doubt.  _No need to dwell and dig himself into an ever deeper pit. It was what it was. Unchangeable._  

What mattered  was that they had the girl, their leverage and advantage before the real strike, to keep the Autobots occupied with running circles for her while the Decepticons prepared for battle.

He stared at the female and she stared back, unflinching, unblinking, cocking her head in consideration.  _There was something familiar there._  Something he recognized even here on this muddy dirtball with a deadline, this place of nothing but wasted breaths and things alive for just a blink of an optic, briefly existing just to be turned into decaying remains. 

He pondered what could be familiar about an inconsequential organic and was surprised to realize that she, just like the Saleen himself, was a  _killer_  at spark. More than that, he had been  _wrong_. She was still dead meat walking, butshe _knew_ it _._  Knew it and met her fate with backstruts of high strength steel, unwavering pride and her head held high. Undefeated.  _A warrior._

Her eyes were hard as diamonds when she looked at him and he was losing himself in a maelstrom of memories, despair.... _and Her._

_There was something there, some strange connection he hadn't ever felt before, those hard eyes drawing him in, and he just knew that she was the only one he could ever...what? What was this connection?_

He was aching to know. Without realizing he was doing it, a gripper cable with razor sharp barbs was stretched out, held hovering close to her fragile skin. 

Without any signs of fear, she reached out and touched it, cutting her finger and drawing a small rivulet of blood. She sucked the sting, never breaking eye to optic contact. His toothy intake moved hungrily, two of his optics following how her lips closed around her finger, the slow movement when she pulled it out of her mouth.

"You're my kind of poison." 

She mouthed the words, tongue and lips stained red by her blood but a predatory smirk stretched her mouth, curled up to show a fang and Barricade's spark made backflips.

He knew that  _femmes_  were dangerous, apparently that applied to females of all species.  _Who would've thought?_

Mikaela,  _that was her name_ , the mate,  _no, ex-mate,_  of ladiesman217, the...what,  _hub_ for all the Autobot's cables?! Yuck.  _But still..._    _Primus, she made it hard to process._  

She leaned her back against the bars, Unicron visible in the smirk on her face as she looked his frame up and down in a  _very_  deliberate way. Barricade's fans clicked on when she turned her knee outward to spread her thighs. 

Blackout's optics snapped to him, the Helicopter unaware of what was going on and Barricade shrugged.

"It's hot in this desert wasteland."

Blackout looked at him for long seconds, because it really wasn't, not in the middle of the night, but the Helo dismissed the incongruence with reality with a roll of his optics, dismissing his partner for this mission without much thought. They didn't really get along.

Barricade turned back to  _Her_.

She licked the blood off her upper lip, slowly.  _Little killer female, so vicious in a fight._  Unafraid, driving back into the fray as if she had craved the violence for her entire life and finally got to be in the thick of it. Or the way she hadn't hesitated to take on Frenzy with a saw while the boy tried to flee. The interrogator realized that she had been violent from the start, from the first time he had encountered her.  _Violent like him._

_So magnetic, pulling him in like nothing else._

Before he knew it, he reached for the door of her cell, yanking it open. She grinned broadly and he grinned back, all pointy teeth and sharp angles.

Scorponok hit Barricade with his stinger, the sharp weapon sinking into the Mustang's back. The pain was agonizing, but he didn't care.

The girl,  _his_  vicious little hellcat, went for the fragging symbiote! With a blade a laughable size, she managed to sever the main hydraulic pressure line, making the drone lose power almost immediately. He hadn't even hit the ground before she was on him again, targeting energon lines. 

Blackout staggered to his pedes, taken off guard and crippled by the pain from his symbiote, he was onlining his guns with great effort. 

Barricade didn't give him time to shut the connection to his drone. With a lash of his own grippers, the Mustang did the same damage to the host. 

Mikaela cackled in a way that would be disturbing if he didn't know what it felt like to be a killer at heart, watching somebot leak out.

Tremors went through his frame, the sting of the drone like poison to his systems, but he didn't care. It felt cold in his lines, but he was being reborn at the same time. Her smoldering eyes, staring unblinking at him, seemed to superheat him, made him so very aware of everything in the present.  _Like the tongues of Satan lapping at his frame after a deal for his soul, chasing away the coldness of deactivation, and maybe she was the devil herself._

He transformed and popped the passenger door in invitation and she slid inside, all grace, smooth skin and warm life and he shivered in pleasure when her bare thighs rubbed against the seats in his altmode.

"Give me a ride that will put Bumblebee to shame." She whispered, voice like long hours of fucking.

The Saleen growled, radiating jealousy at the mention of the brat and the insinuation of a sexual encounter between  _his_  little hellcat and the Autobot.

He pushed himself, drifting a 180 and fishtailing as he peeled out, his tail an angry whip, lashing the cold night air and  _She_  whooped in delight. If he had been in robot mode, he would have grinned at her enthusiasm.

They were running from the mess they left behind, his treason something he couldn't find it in himself to regret.  _She was the only one to feel like this about._

They reached a canyon and he stopped, her warmth and the smell of her getting too heady,  _too much_ , yet he needed  _more_.

Mikaela tumbled out when he opened the door, fingers trailing his side, tongue gliding over his '... to punish and enslave' sticker. Barricade growled and transformed, fans working overtime as she shimmied out of her panties. He grabbed her and lifted her to his chest as he got down on his back, depositing her on top of him.

His spike pressurized when her tiny skirt was pushed up when she straddled him, revealing exactly how ready she was for him.

"Well, I'll be damned.  _That_  is a piece of equipment I couldn't even make up in my sweetest dreams." She said, rubbing along the length with both hands, fingers alternating their pressure in a perfect rhythm to drive him crazy.

He reprogrammed his configuration, making his spike slightly smaller. He needed to fit, needed to be buried in that wet heat right now, and she heeded that request, slowly sinking down on him, head thrown back, mouth falling open.  _The most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, his personal drug, his personal poison, the thing that would destroy him._

Barricade's chestplates popped open of their own accord, but for the first time, he didn't care. Her emerald green eyes fixed on the burning orb, the corona licking out towards her and she reached a hand out to swirl her fingers through the energy.

It wrapped around her arm like strands of silk and gold, tugging her in, stretching itself out further than he thought possible until it could envelop her, swirl with her motions, feel the wet slide of her tongue as she welcomed his very spark into herself, into a kiss deeper than anything before, a kiss that mended his spark that had been so broken after millions of years of war.

Barricade's optics whited out, but he could still hear her,  _feel her in his spark_ , could feel her sensations, memories and everything else that was  _her,_  laid bare  for him and he knew that she could see him just as clearly.

She took her pleasure from his frame, unashamed, and he followed her up, racing towards their peaks. In the split seconds before he overloaded, he stabbed her on her muscled shoulder blade, injecting his energon, his nanites to mark her as  _his_. 

The Saleen was not prepared for her to bring out her blade and stab one of his energon lines, even less so for her to bend down and _suck_  the cut but she had him teetering on the edge just by that.

Her blood dripped from where he had sliced her, heavy drops of crimson red, caught in the blue tendrils of his spark, turning into purple dribbles of molten -

_He ignited_.  It was a flash, like a supernova flaring up, and that dark, purple energy shot through his systems like jet fuel laced with boosters, setting him alight along it's path, burning him up just to immediately rebuild something new.

Her sudden orgasm plowed into him like Astrotrain without brakes. Barricade overloaded hard, his systems falling into reboot one after the other in quick succession but before he offlined, he was absolutely certain of one thing.

_When he was back online, he'd be marked as her's forever._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, when you’re in the light  
> You look like an animal caged tight, dead life  
> I feel the end, I feel the one  
> I feel the hammer crush down on your world  
> I’m going down, down, down, oh yeah
> 
> Killer heart in the wasteland  
> Diamond eyes, I’m a maelstrom  
> You’re the only one to love  
> It’s the only way to know  
> I’m born with a scorpion’s touch
> 
> True danger of females  
> The jealous whip of the devil’s tail  
> Emerald’s kiss on a broken heart  
> She was violent from the start  
> A hellcat in a mini skirt
> 
> Killer heart in the wasteland  
> Diamond eyes, I’m a maelstrom  
> You’re the only one to love  
> It’s the only way to know  
> I’m born with a scorpion’s touch
> 
> I’m born, with an endless love  
> Killer heart in the wasteland  
> I’m born, with a scorpion  
> Killer heart in the wasteland
> 
> Killer heart in the wasteland  
> Diamond eyes, I’m a maelstrom  
> You’re the only one to love  
> It’s the only way to know  
> I’m born with a scorpion’s touch


	2. Spark possession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Barricade reboots after their tryst, he discovers something disturbing. How will he deal with the way his functioning has changed? Of course it's complicated. Will love or evil prevail, or do they walk hand in hand?
> 
> Inspired by "Heart possession" by Calabrese.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for Werewolfey stuff: blood, gore, eating a human heart. Angst and love. Non graphic sex

Barricade onlined, the amount of time that had passed since he was smashed into reboot by her overload unknown. His choronmeter was fragged up. When he tried to review the data of the event, it almost looked as if he hadn't just rebooted.  _He appeared to have been deactivated._

Then that must mean that he had risen from deactivation of his own accord. A disturbing thought. Barricade busied himself taking stock of his frame and immediately knew that he was changed. He felt different. On inspection, his  _coding_  was different.

He sat up slowly, gyros more sensitive, optics taking in the light of the stars much more effectively, almost blinding him.

The girl sat on the ground, studying him with her head cocked to the side. She sniffed the air. Instinctively, he did the same, triggered by something at least as deep as base coding.

His olfactory sensors were more sensitive too. The Saleen could smell her.  _She was his. His nanites had marked her, but he could smell it in other ways too, other ways he didn't understand._

It was impossible for him to say if this was normal. He hadn't heard of a Cybertronian getting bonded to an organic before. He scratched at his chestplates but the itch was deeper than that,  _inside his chamber_.

The Mustang swallowed, his intake feeling raw and the girl slowly smiled.  _As if she knew something he didn't._

"I like this look on you." She purred as she rose to her feet.

"What look?" His voice sounded more gravelly than usual, matching his raw intake.

"You're _mine."_  She growled, stalking closer.

Barricade stretched out one of his slim grippers, one with a camera attached. It was installed for recon purposes, but he was curious what she meant.

His intake was changed. Subtly, but still noticable. His denta was slightly shorter, except his fangs. They were longer. His audials were a little broader and he could move them now, making his hearing even better. What stood out though, was his optics.  _They were a deep orange, like a sunset._

He was torn from his wonder by slender fingers teasing the seam of his chestplates and when he looked down at Mikaela, he realized that some of his mass was subspaced, he was smaller. The plates opened automatically, but he didn't care. She was no threat, this he knew.

The light shining out when the casing irised open made his processor blank out.  _It was green._  

Almost like her eyes. The pulse was slow, almost sluggish, but he didn't feel weak. On the contrary, he felt more powerful than ever.

The light reached for the center of her chest, seemed to permeate her skin, lighting her from the inside. The itch disappeared and he groaned, arching against her. 

Mikaela smiled dreamily, reaching her hands out to the sides and he grabbed them in his much bigger servos.

"Finally. I've waited for so long and now I've finally found you." She mumbled cryptically.

"What do you mean?"

"You're my soulmate, my true one. Feels like I waited an eternity. But now I want to see the rest of you, I can  _feel_  it in you."

Before Barricade could ask anything more, their connection pulsed and pushed and she smirked when his coding started to swirl across his HUD, long lines of a new transformation sequence pulled forward by something she had called to. He could feel her possessiveness of him in his spark, feel her need for him, her demand that he was hers to keep. It was a demand easy to acquiesce to.  _He wouldn't want to be anywhere but with her._

Then the rapidly flashing code took more of his concentration, as he could feel himself start to shift. Mikaela slid down from him and his spark chamber closed.

_His entire frame was hurting._  Every plating moved in directions it hadn't before, struts changed shape, joints reconfigured. Barricade fell on his front, scrabbling uselessly in the dirt, a static scream leaving his vocalizer. The transformation was brutal, agonizing, and left him panting to cool his frame when it was finally finished. Something dark in him, basal and primitive, tried to take over his processes, but he fought it, succeeding only because the sight of her grounded him.

"So  _beautiful_." Mikaela mumbled, more to herself than to him.

_He couldn't speak._  The language files seemed unaccessible in this form, whatever it was.

Mikaela walked up to him, caressing lazy fingers over the plating of his arm. It caught his optics.  _It wasn't an arm._  

With horrified revulsion, he studied the strut, all the way down to his servo. Or what should have been a servo.  _It looked more like the pede of a beast former._

He heard the odd noise before he realized that he was the one making it. A low, animalistic whining of distress.  _What in the pit was going on?!_

He shied away from the girl, afraid that she wouldn't want him, would be disgusted.

"No, baby, don't be like that. You're  _beautiful_. Perfect. And you're  _mine_. Forever." She purred, snapping a few pictures of him with her phone. 

Her voice calmed him, but he was still disgusted with himself.  _Why was this happening?_

"Shhhh. I can sense that you don't understand. Transform back and I'll explain."

It seemed impossible at first, it was so much harder to concentrate on his processes in this form. His senses were even stronger and distracted him. The spark deep connection to her helped him, grounded him and slowly, Barricade managed to shift back to his new root mode.

"You see, I'm not exactly... _human_. My life goes back over a thousand years. For a long time, I considered myself cursed, condemned to walk the Earth alone for all eternity for some sin I didn't even know I committed. But not now, not when I have finally found  _you_. I realize that I wasn't cursed, I was blessed. I just had to find you to realize I was."

He didn't understand her ramblings fully, what it had to do with him turning into some sort of cyberanimal. She smiled softly at him.

"I was walking alone in the forest when it happened, out to gather mushrooms. I strayed further from home than I originally planned and got lost. Dark fell quickly, but the full moon rose, lighting my surroundings enough to make me try to find my way even after nightfall. I don't know for how long I walked before I started feeling like something watched me. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end and chills went up my spine."

She paused, wrapping her arms around herself. The memory was still vivid, the only one she had from her earlier life. He could feel it, see it through her. The fear felt so real, not at all like a distant memory, and it had his plating instinctively lifting up in aggression against anything that dared harm his mate. She smiled again, curling her digits into cables under his plating, something he found intensely soothing.

"It came out of nowhere, solid black and burning amber eyes and it was on me in the blink of an eye. Sharp teeth dug into my chest with crazed rage. The pain was excruciating. I heard a horrible crunching sound, my ribcage was being torn open and I knew without a doubt that I was going to die. Then the beast sank it's teeth into my heart and I was gone."

She leaned into him for strength to tell a tale she had never told anyone before and he curled his arms around her protectively.

"Until the next night, when I woke up. I didn't have much time with mental clarity, but my throat was burning, so I managed to find a creek to quench what I believed was thirst. It didn't do anything for the burning though..."

_He recognized that burning itch in the back of his intake._

"But I got to see my own reflection in the water and I was horrified. I looked more like a beast than a human. Sharp teeth, glowing eyes... So I ran. I ran until night fell and I stumbled to the ground, my very bones  _breaking._  I panicked, of course, but that didn't do anything to help. Then I blacked out until an evening, I don't know how many days later. I was covered in blood and gore and completely naked. There was nothing I could do but start walking. So I walked until I came to a village. It turned out to be my home village."

Mikaela was staring out into the distance, unseeing. What played for her mind's eye was her memories and Barricade could feel and see them through her.

"Everyone was dead. Every single one. Torn to bloody pieces. My parents. My husband. My daughter. I will never know if I was the one who did it. I panicked and fled again, and it was a very long time before I stabilized, lost in madness as I was. I gave in to the beast."

"So what are you?" He asked.

"Werewolf."

As soon as the word was uttered, he scoured the internet.  _Folklore. Ghost story. Not real._

"Hack my phone. Check the pictures. Or I could send them to you."

He hacked the device as she spoke, inside the systems in less than a second. The pictures made him freeze up.  _He looked kind of like a cyberwolf or a turbofox, but not that alien either. More like a cyberformed Earthen wolf._ Agitated, he got up, pacing. Anger suddenly surged to the surface, roiling like a tempest through his chest.

"Look what you've _done_  to me!" He snarled. "Cursed wreck of an organic, you  _ruined_  me!"

She shook her head, backing away with her hands held out placatingly, tears in her eyes.

"You're _mine._  Always were. We've been marked for each other since the day I was turned. We just didn't know..."

"Liar!" He hissed, seeing red, illogically angry. " _You_  did this! You and your  _curse_. I saved you're life and you turned me into... turned me into _this_. I don't even know what I  _am_."

"Does it matter? You're mine. I'm  _your's._ " She tried.

"I didn't want _this_!" He growled.

"But you wanted _me._ " She protested.

"I just wanted to fuck." He lied.

Mikaela narrowed her eyes. He was treading on her last nerve, he could sense that through their wretched bond, but what he saw in her eyes was pure hurt.

"You just wait. I'll go now, but I'll be back. When the hunger is clawing inside your chest and you think you're being ripped apart.  _Then_  I'll show you how to feed." She whispered.

Mikaela stared him in the optics for long seconds before turning away. She stripped out of her skirt and tank top, running out into the darkness on bare feet, leaving Barricade to watch with a twinging spark as the only one he could love left him behind. He sat down heavily, following her with his enhanced optics, her naked form sprinting faster and more agile than any human. He saw her transform in the distance, too far away to allow him to see her other form.

A lone howl rang out over the gritty plains and Barricade's spark constricted because he was at least as lonely as she was.

 

*****

 

If Barricade hadn't been so damned miserable, he might have been annoyed that the cursed fleshling was right.

His spark felt like it was imploding, his intake felt like it was on fire and he hadn't refueled for Primus knows how long. Every time he tried, the humans in town were just too much. He shied away, couldn't go near the pumps to get their subpar fuel. The one time he managed, the fuel almost made him retch, smelled worse than ever before and he ended up not even taking a sip. He had slipped out of there and hid away in the blasted canyon, curling up in the shallow cave, shivering as he waited for her.

_And now she was here_. His spark thrummed and he knew that she was coming long before he could sense her in any other way.

By the time she appeared around the bend, walking on bare feet, silently like a wraith, he was already moving, crawling to her.

Mikaela didn't stand tall, wasn't stoic or condescending. She fell on top of him, writhing against him to get closer than possible, to get under his plating, relief flooding their bond and the pain in his spark vanished.

_She had missed him, she_ needed _him._  It was a revelation, nobody had ever needed him before. He was like oxygen to her, like water and it was a heady feeling.

"Barricade." She whispered, voice reverent.

"Mikaela." Her name was out before he knew, like a hail to a goddess he hadn't known he worshipped.

In his spark, though, he knew. She had but one demand, and that was for him to be  _her's._  He couldn't be anything else, just like he could have nobody else but her. She was right, he was marked for her. He just had not been able to see the mark, vision clouded by anger and denial.

"Let's feed, my love. I can feel that you're famished." She murmured.

With a hand stronger than should be possible, she helped him to his pedes before suddenly shifting into her other shape.  _A wolf, brownish gray with green eyes._  The transition was smooth with practiced ease.  _Similar to his original transformation sequence._  She wasn't lying, she had really been like this for that long.  _She was still beautiful._  

The thought gave him hope. If he could find a mere Earthen animal beautiful, then maybe she really could find his new altmode non-repulsive.

Over the bond she pulsed exasperated approval.  _There wasn't any way she could find him anything but perfect._

He transformed easier this time, his struts having configured to this sequence. Then they were off, running into the night, silent and deadly. Prowling the dark, like a nightmare come true. Hunting for his first true meal.

Base coding took over, dragging him under to allow this new beast out, relying on primal instincts as he followed her.

 

*****

 

When the technimal finally let go of him, he rebooted in his root mode on the gravelly ground. He slowly sat up, trying to find his bearings. 

Mikaela was next to him, waiting in her human form. Light flickered over her naked skin, a shed on fire illuminating the scene. He looked around. What appeared to be a small village, just a few houses and a gas station, was partially burnt out. Big, black birds sat solemnly along the roof of one house, watching the gruesome scene.  _Vultures_ , his automatic search function supplied him unnecessarily.

Smoldering remains of a small house spread a stench of burnt wood and...and  _flesh_. He smelled blood and everything that had once been inside humans. An arm, torn from the body with brute force lay forgotten on the ground.

A groan pulled his attention back to Mikaela. She was holding a dazed human, the man's bruised face a giveaway for why he was semi-conscious.

"I caught him for _you._ " She said proudly, pushing her gift towards him.

"Uhm. Thanks?" Barricade didn't know what she expected, but he leaned closer anyway.

The burning in his intake flared when he smelled the man, the blood in his veins. The thudding of his heart, the rush of blood with every beat reached Barricade's audials and the Saleen felt like he was falling into a trance. Something weak in the back of his processor protested,  _he wasn't an animal, shouldn't feel like this._

"Take it. You need this now." She said. "But you have to take his entire heart, or he will become one of us. That can never happen."

Entranced, Barricade crept closer, sniffing his prey as base coding started to take over again. The thumping of the man's heart seemed to grow louder until it was all he could hear, the smell of blood, metallic and sharp, made the burning in his intake turn into a wildfire and he could no longer control himself.

_He pounced._  Maw wide open, sharp denta easily slicing through soft flesh and the scream of the victim, suddenly conscious, egged him on, made him tear in with a new ferocity. The crunching of bones breaking as he tore the ribcage open had him momentarily letting go, the sensation foreign and somewhat disgusting, but he still needed  _more_ of that blood, so thick in his parched intake, the full taste so very sweet, finally easing the fire in his throat. He looked down,  _seeing_  the heart still beating, dark blood welling up around it. He cocked his helm, part fascinated, part disgusted by the insides of an organic.

Barricade couldn't hold back. He tore into the flailing man, adrenaline spicing the blood that smeared his face, his servos and slicked his glossa with that wonderful richness. The flailing turned to twitching, the screaming stopped, when he tore the heart out with his denta, chewing sloppily before swallowing it. 

It settled in his tank like the best high grade he'd ever had. The Saleen felt his spark calm down, his intake no longer raw.  _He felt content_.

Beside him Mikaela rose, stretching a hand out to him to help him up. Barricade pulled her down instead, pinning her beneath his frame, overcome with a burning need for her. She went willingly, wrapped her legs around his hips and met him, wet and ready and he sank in to the hilt without pause.

His spark chamber opened, the corona reaching for her chest and she arched into it, reaching for it the only way she could and they connected immediately.

_Never leave me again_. He demanded.

_Never push me away_. She answered.

_Never_. They both agreed.

It was another milestone in Barricade's functioning, a functioning that had abruptly taken a new route, changing forever. He was bound to Earth, as he fed on organics now, but that wasn't even a price to pay. What overshadowed everything else was that he was bound to _her._  A spark deep connection, one that he had resented not many days ago, but now he wouldn't want to ever function without her again.

The way their coupling set everything right made it crystal clear that this was where he belonged and he wanted nothing else.  _He had everything he needed, things he hadn't even known he was missing until they were blatantly shoved at him with brutal flicks of Lady Fate's servos, stabbed into him with Mikaela's little blade and dripped into him with her crimson blood._

He looked at his girl, hair a tangled mess and her entire body smeared with drying blood, gore and dust, face set in a look of bliss when he slowly slid in and out of her and finally, he really  _saw_  her. 

_She was perfect. And she was his._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Heart Possession"  
> To rise from my own death,  
> I was betrayed by your curse.  
> Look what you've done to me. 
> 
> "Wait," she said, "I'll be right back."  
> When the hunger grows deep in your chest,  
> She'll show me how to feed. 
> 
> Take my hand, feel in your heart  
> All I demand, your life is marked.  
> Vultures perched on burnt out buildings,  
> The only life I know is changing,  
> Forever changing. 
> 
> Inside the heart of a man is  
> Dark blood, pure and rich and full.  
> You'll feel what I feel. 
> 
> Awful, violent burning,  
> Heart stopping, it's the only way.  
> Hard motion, blue murder, whoa. 
> 
> Take my hand, feel in your heart  
> All I demand, your life is marked.  
> Vultures perched on burnt out buildings,  
> The only life I know is changing,  
> Forever changing.


	3. There's an evil inside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A former ally has turned into an enemy after Will Lennox's family was brutally killed and he goes on a hunt. But of course it's complicated.
> 
> What one perceives as evil might not be in the eyes of another. Sometimes, shit happens to good people. Drama, suspense, major character death and violence in this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Non graphic murder of a newly turned werewolf. Not very detailed description of character death. Violence. Major character death, so undetailed it's almost just implied it will happen.

Major William Lennox, well,  _former_ Major, steps into the bathroom, his silver spurs clinking as he walks. To someone uninitiated, he probably looks like a cowboy wannabe of questionable sexuality with his silver toed, pointy cowboy boots and shiny spurs, but to him they serve a very distinct purpose. Worst case scenario, they are the difference between life and death, actually.

Long gone are the days when he had a place to go. Sure, he travelled far and wide with the military back then, but he always returned home. Now though, now sees him without anywhere to go, no place he calls home. Nothing really matters anymore. Nothing but vengeance and that's what he's chasing, never stopping anywhere for long. Like a nomadic hunter, following his prey.  _Or the tide, following the moon._

They say you don't truly appreciate what you have until you lose it and maybe that's true. It's a lesson he'd rather not have learned. The hate consumes him because he had  _everything_. Until that wretched bitch tore it all away in brutal swipes of sharp claws, with razor teeth and a never sated bloodlust.

He stops and sets his quarry down, staring down at the gruesome scene. There's blood everywhere, her body looks like someone took a blender to it.  _No, not a blender. That's too small a tool. More like the evil lovechild of a motorized hedge-trimmer and a jaws-of-life._

To him, the bloodstains are just another mark on his treasure map where any gold found comes in the shape of retaliation. To find this victim tells him that he's getting close.

Before his eyes, the mangled mess of a corpse starts healing at a pace no human ever could on the best of days, tissue knitting together seamlessly. She gasps, opening her too blue eyes and he's on her immediately, pressing his silver spur against her neck. The thing hisses and snarls when newly healed skin immediately blisters.

"Where  _is_  she?" He asks through clenched teeth.

"Who? What?" The thing on the floor rasps.

"The bitch who did this to you." Lennox has no patience with this thing, no compassion for the unfortunate once-girl.  _She's a means to an end._

"I-I... I don't know what you're talking about. I was bitten by a dog, I think. But-but it... I  _died_! Didn't I? How...?"

_Always the same confusion, always the same stupid fucking questions._  He growls in annoyance. The precious few he's found alive is frustratingly unhelpful. The thing pushes on his boot, yelping when she touches the silver toe cap. He lets up on the pressure, because sometimes, that makes them more coherent. He isn't hopeful though.

"What really happened?" She asks.

This time he deigns to answer, because it might get her talking.

"You left your home at night.  _Big_  mistake. Evil prevailed. I took you here when I found you. Needed you alone for this."

"What are you going to do with me?" She sobs, typical fear of being a girl finding herself alone with an unknown man.  _As if she isn't a monster._

But she isn't a girl anymore and he's not out for  _that._   _Just...ugh._

"Depends. Do you know where she is?" He lies smoothly. He'll kill her, for sure.

"I-I don't remember anything but a big dog. Looked like a wolf, almost." The thing stutters. "And a metallic one? Like a  _robot._ " She seems very unsure, confused. 

_And her statement makes no sense at all._

"You're wasting my time." 

He pulls his knife out and something flares in the eyes of the thing, fear he thinks, before it turns to rage,  _always rage._  It tries to get up, tries to throw him off but he's prepared when all that unnatural strength is turned against him.

_The first time he hadn't been, hadn't known, and it almost cost him his life._  

But not now. Smoothly, he dips down over the wolf in human form and sinks the serrated blade of his custom made hunters knife into the heart of the beast. It's silver plated and the thing thrashes and screams as the heart stutters weakly before finally falling still and silent.  _As it should've been in the first place._

He stands, looking down at the thing at his feet for a few moments. This one didn't manage to kill anyone before he got it and he owed her a comparatively easy death. The still form, still covered in dried blood, looks like any other young girl.  _Could've been his daughter if she'd been allowed to live to this age._  A victim of a stabbing. The autopsy will show nothing strange. The wound will show his knife sliding into the organ as the cause of death. It's ironic, really. He is the only one he knows of that's saving mankind from fairytale monsters that goes killing without restraint and  _he's_ the one wanted for several murders.

He leaves, mindful to not leave a trail, except for the heartache that inevitably follows in his wake. He carefully avoids the thought of the thing's family, people who will forever think she was just another victim of a meaningless crime. And in a sense, she is. Just that he isn't the one doing it for a thrill, isn't guilty of killing someone just because he can.  _He wouldn't have been forced to kill her if she hadn't been turned into what she was._

It's the same thing every time. Another noname town, another John or Jane Doe, another family left mourning, wondering what happened. Picking up the pieces to try to live without closure, without a murderer to pin their beloved one's demise on.

_He knows how his family went_. It doesn't help, it doesn't bring them back, but at least he can chase his vengeance and that's all he does now, the reason he still exists. Lennox thinks about how bad luck has left him following cold trails and sometimes, his quarry slipping away with just minutes to spare. He's been thrown off the track time and again but now, he's  _finally_  getting close. Hopefully, Lady Luck will finally smile down at him this time. Whatever happens, he knows he'll find trouble either way. But he's ready.

 

 

*****

 

 

It is almost too easy this time. He finds the place the bitch is staying at: a motel in a sleepy little backwater in Bumfuck, Nowhere and he hunkers down in the bar across the street.

Waiting, keeping his eyes trained on the door to her room. Dark is falling rapidly and he can feel his anticipation rise. Once upon a normal life, he would've been horrified by someone holding the kind of dark hate that has taken up residence in his heart, would have seen that person at least as evil as the creature he's hunting. 

Not anymore. It has festered and rotted until it permeates his entire being, leaving him cold and detached from anything but his rage, his heart a yawning abyss that love once filled. It's uncontrollable, this hatred, like it is an entity in itself.

His prey leaves her room, almost impossible to see.  _Of course she is, she wouldn't have made it this long without being cautious_. He better not forget that she's cunning if nothing else. The room is at the furthest end, the light outside broken and she has no light on inside when she slinks out. It's movement of shadows in shadows, but his singular focus makes out the outline of the slim girl slipping out into the night.

Will rises and follows. He has no doubts that the bitch will be able to hear his footsteps, so he makes no effort to walk silently on the gravel road. Better to just seem like a normal guy, going about his day. He has put rubber bands on his spurrs. They might attract unwanted attention from the creature he's going after tonight.

The light breeze comes from the right direction, taking his scent away from her, a small but crucial favor from Lady Fate, he figures.  _A good omen._

She's going in the right direction, probably curious about the scene he's set up.  _A little spilled blood attracts the things like flies when they're close to their change._

Lennox almost blows his chance. He can't believe it when she walks straight into his trap to investigate the smell she's found. The bitch is running mostly on instincts now, but she isn't stupid, and it isn't long before she balks with the realization of what she has walked into. He feels drunk on victory and out of pure astonishment that it actually worked, he is almost too late to smash her in the back of her head with the piece of pipe he's wielding but he manages to land a solid hit.

Silver manacles are slapped around her wrists and he looks at how her skin starts to go red and blisters almost instantly with a perverse satisfaction. Then he hoists her unconscious form over his shoulder. He needs to take her somewhere they won't be disturbed and he has found the the place.

 

 

*****

 

 

Mikaela Banes,  _well, the thing_ calling _itself Mikaela Banes_ , regains consciousness with a groan. The ex Major has watched the gash in the back of her head heal while she was out and though normal people would either be dead by that injury, or at least still unconscious, here she is.  _Alive and well_.

She sits up from her position on the dirty concrete floor, looking at her wrists for long seconds, frowning confusedly at the restraints that has turned her skin into an oozing mess.

Lennox shifts in his chair and the movement catches her attention. Recognition flashes in her eyes and a multitude of emotions passes over her face, too fast to analyze, when she sees him. A slow, insolent smirk settles on the features he once considered pretty.

"Hi Will." 

"Banes." He growls, not liking her fearlessness despite her predicament.

"So..." She trails off, holding up her hands to indicate her manacles.

"You're going to pay for what you did. Slowly and agonizingly." He states matter of factly.

"You know, I never  _intended_  to do that." The bitch sounds entirely unrepentant, smirking even.

"Doesn't matter. You  _did_  it. And I'm going to make you pay for it with your own blood."

"Wow. The righteous Major, turning from an honorable soldier for a cause to a homicidal lunatic. I didn't see  _that_  coming." Mikaela almost sounds amused, at least not disapproving.  _Will might be right; she might be the spawn of Satan._

"I wouldn't call killing  _you_  a  _homicide_ , but I guess that's semantics. You're right though; loss does _..._ _funny_  things to people." He grits out.

Something unreadable passes over her face.

"Indeed."

"That's all you have to say?! You  _murdered_  my  _family_!" He yells.

"I didn't mean to! I couldn't control myself. I really tried!" 

She still isn't afraid of him and he hates her all the more for that.  _As if she could make him feel better by saying those things._   _She shouldn't even_ exist _and if she had just seen that and offed herself in the first place, they wouldn't be here._

He can't take it anymore, his heart has been burning for vengeance for far too long and she isn't taking him seriously.

Lennox punches her in the mouth. 

It's intensely satisfying to feel her fucking teeth give in under his fist, to watch her head snap back by the force behind it. Mikaela falls over backwards but rolls with the momentum, coming up on her knees with disturbing grace. She spits out blood and the sound of knocked out teeth hitting the ground is like music to his ears.

Then she  _laughs_.

A slow, deliberate chuckle that has his blood curdling with the malice in it,  _an untamed spirit of pure evil,_  and boiling all the same because she  _still_  doesn't seem  _afraid_.

"Did you know your wife was cheating?" She lisps while she is still healing, blood bubbling out with every wretched word that leaves her filthy mouth.

He can't look away, can't  _not_  listen, the nasty glint in her eyes and the words she's saying transfixing him.

"With a  _leech_. That's why I couldn't control myself. She was whoring herself out to a fucking vampire and he was drinking from her too. As if she was a fucking  _cow_." Mikaela says it with so much disgust.

" _Liar!_ " Will hisses.  _It can't be true. There's no such thing as vampires. On the other hand, he didn't think werewolves existed either... But that's not here nor there. His wife couldn't have done that. He_ _would have known._

"Am I, really? Don't tell me you never ever saw the marks of his teeth on her wrists, her neck. The inside of her thighs." Her lip curls up in disgust.

"Sarah wouldn't do that to me." 

_Lies. To save herself. The bitch would say anything. Of course she's a good liar, her entire existence depends on keeping the truth hidden at all costs._   _Those marks were nothing. Just bug bites._

"Oh, but she would,  _darling_. I smelled it faintly on her from the very beginning. Thought he was using thrall to lure her to allow him to feed and fuck. But then I _saw_  them together. No thrall, nothing. Just a willing blood bag-and-cunt for him to take what he wanted from."

"What about Anabelle? You killed her too. My innocent little _daughter._ "

"Ah, you mean the _half-breed?_  The kid your wife conceived from her illicit affair with the dark side?" She hums in amusement.

Will can't help himself, even though he knows that keeping his cool would make for better vengeance. He's so hungry for this, to see her finally suffer and he loves the feeling of parts of her being destroyed by his doing. 

He kicks her in her newly healed face.

"Shut up, you fucking  _bitch!_  Just shut the fuck _up_!" He snarls as a spray of blood explodes from her mouth.

_She doesn't._

With a bordering deranged cackle, she keeps going.

"I still left her alone after that, you know. But then she just  _had_   _to_  push her luck,  _had to_  confront me when I was close to changing. Had the  _audacity_  to be judgmental about _my_  choice of a mate, and that's not even a choice but a Primus-blessed appointment, when she herself was spreading her legs for a _fucking leech_!" The rant is ended in a snarl and he can see clearly how inhuman this thing is, the beast that tore his family apart. Literally.  _He was the one to pick up the parts, to mop up the blood from the eviscerated remains. He even saw her do it, but by the time he made it there, his family was gone forever._

"See, I couldn't let that slide, not when she came to attack me with her prejudice and the heavy stink of that vile creature permeating her very being. I couldn't stop myself."

"Stop! Just fucking  _stop!"_ He yells, kicking her in the stomach. 

Mikaela stills when he pushes his sharpened spurr against her neck. A slow smile creeps over her face even as her skin starts blistering 

"You should've stayed at  _home_. He's coming for me. And when he's here, what  _you_  perceive as evil will prevail. He's going to fucking  _kill_  you for this." She smiles, as if it's more of a promise than an empty threat.

"Who? And not if I kill you first."  _Lying little bitch, trying to throw him off his game._

"My mate. And you're wrong, you know. If you kill me first, you will just go more slowly. More  _painfully_." She smirks.

"It might be worth it just to see you dead and rotting for what you did." He grinds out between clenched teeth.

Mikaela snorts.

"You really don't want to move on, do you? Considering everything, I'd say good riddance. I made you a favor."

"Enough!" 

He kicks her again but as her nose starts bleeding, she laughs.

"He's here."

The doors to the abandoned warehouse Will has chosen for this bursts open. The former soldier can do nothing but stare as  _Barricade_  barges in, optics gleaming and sharp teeth bared. Four optics locks on the man with blood stained boots.

The Decepticon says nothing, a low snarl leaving him instead. The mech doesn't seem coherent, running on some sort of instinct. Guns hums to life, aimed at Will. 

"You're so fucked now. Get ready to meet your wife." Mikaela snickers. 

"You're with _him?!_ " He spits, disgusted.

"Yes." Mikaela sounds breathless.

Then the moment of suspension is over and Barricade pounces on the attacker of his sparkmate.

There's a moment of clarity in the middle of all the pain, that moment when it's crystal clear that he is going to die, and maybe,  _just maybe_ , the end was what William Lennox was really chasing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's an evil inside
> 
> Well, I got nowhere to go,  
> Heel spurs on a bathroom floor.  
> Bloodstains mark a map of gold,  
> Killer wolf in human form. 
> 
> Well, evil prevails  
> On the night you left your home,  
> And I'll take you away  
> Alone. 
> 
> Heartache on my trail,  
> Gonna find my misery,  
> Bad luck on my mind,  
> Always trouble -- what I find. 
> 
> Well, evil prevails  
> On the night you left your home,  
> And I'll take you away  
> Alone. 
> 
> Cold and holding a dark hate in your heart,  
> Spirit of evil, controlled by no one,  
> And I'll smash in your teeth in.  
> Your mouth will explode  
> With the blood and the want  
> And the hunger I love. 
> 
> Well, I got nowhere to go,  
> Heel spurs on a bathroom floor.  
> Bloodstains mark a map of gold,  
> Killer wolf in human form. 
> 
> Well, evil prevails  
> On the night you left your home,  
> And I'll take you away  
> Alone. 
> 
> Cold and holding a dark hate in your heart,  
> Spirit of evil, controlled by no one,  
> And I'll smash in your teeth in.  
> Your mouth will explode  
> With the blood and the want  
> And the hunger I love.


	4. At night, I am the warmest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The military ranks of the Autobots have been run over by vampires. Mikaela and Barricade takes it upon themselves to clear that mess up, before another bond is formed and a mech turned like Barricade was. They're on a killing spree, but none of them really mind. As long as they have each other, nothing really matters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing graphic, even though they're on a rampage of death and destruction. Sex and sexual tension, but nothing very graphic.

He followed in her wake, the trail of bloody breadcrumbs in the form of destruction, dead and dying she left for him. A wraith on unnaturally silent pedes, a demon of two worlds and their fairytale monsters combined, he stalked through the night. 

They had made such a mistake.  _The Autobots_ , that is. And they had no idea, naive fools that they were. 

It started with Sarah and Annabelle,  _the leechlover and the halfling._  It had seemed like an isolated incident, but more and more of their allies showed up Turned. It started with Sam, and then it continued to Epps and then it was an epidemic.

Mikaela warned them, right after the debacle with Lennox, and wasn't  _that_  something that still made Barricade's plating stand on end?

They didn't heed her warning. No, they moved their base to Hawaii of all places.  _As if sunshine would have any effect on vampires in reality..._  Oh, she had  _warned_ them repeatedly. Warned them of the death and destruction it would lead to if they didn't clear out their ranks.

Barricade could never tell if she had just perceived herself as "evil" and embraced that, or if she was truly blessed by the devil.  _To him, it didn't matter_. He had never been a saint, and while he'd seen himself as cursed for a while in the beginning, now he considered it more of a blessing by Unicron.  _Or maybe She_ was _the devil and had just taken him for herself._

It didn't matter. He stalked through yet another burning village, the scent of blood and burnt flesh heady in his olfactory sensors. It was a sight to behold, something beautiful he wouldn't have fully appreciated back when he was a normal mech. Decepticons were ruthless, careless, but then they missed the true beauty of carnage, of destruction. They didn't savor the sounds, the smell's, the view of something burning to the ground.  _But then again, he wasn't just a_ Con _anymore_. 

He was part human, part fairytale creature. He was dead and resurrected by forces not explainable with the allspark, or even the humans' deities, because  _She_  was the one who had given him life and opened his optics. A living dead among mortals of both his own species and foreign.

He had a different perspective from everything else alive, and some things undead.

He hurried his steps, stretching his frame to catch up with her, the surroundings going blurry with his speed. He was tired of wandering alone. 

 

 

*****

 

She was standing in the middle of the street, wearing nothing but her human skin when he caught up with her, the light of the fires in the buildings on both sides of the street licking up the smooth expanse of her in a way that almost made him jealous of light itself.

All jealousy vanished when she turned to look at him, because that look made it crystal clear that she would never see anybody but him. He trotted up to her and she stroked his neck, teased the plates of his jaw with a soft smile on her face. 

She stepped back and allowed him place to transform, knowing his intentions without words. Her hungry gaze trailed along his plating, slithered over him like something tangible, like wet licks of her wicked tongue and he felt his temperature rise to upper limits, cooling fans activating.

"I know where we can go, the perfect place. I'll keep you...  _occupied_  as long as the stars are visible. Keep you away from the enemy that is surely coming for us as we speak." He purred.

She grinned and wrapped her arms around his neck when he bent down, followed willingly when he lifted her and wrapped her legs around his hips. Barricade groaned, the heady scent of  _her_  filling his olfactory sensors, the slick sweat on her skin conducting his rising charge in a delicious way as it dripped down on his fevered plating, evaporating into a cloud of steam almost instantly. She whined, all need and want, and nipped at his neckcables, rubbed up against him and he growled in frustration.

It was almost torture _not_  to take her right there, but they were too exposed, and he had found the best place to spend the night.  _He just needed to get his helm out of the gutter long enough to get her there._

It was so very hard to put her down and she protested with a needy whine.

"Not yet, darling. Soon, but not yet." He mumbled, still struggling with control.

"Soon." She whispered.

Then she melted into her animal form and he transformed, leading the way to that secret little pool of water up the mountain where he could finally have her again.

 

 

*****

 

 

Of course it was a  _luau_. When the "men" and "women" that made up the Earthen parts of the Autobot forces took a day off to enjoy the placement of the new base, a holiday paradise in the Pacific, sun warming their cold, dead skin, they staged a  _luau_.

The Autobots fell for it, of course.  _Suckers._  Barricade thought, then he corrected himself.  _The dead still walking were the real suckers._

Oh, the vampires could function on human food, but they  _craved_ the blood of humans. They had managed to keep it hidden up until now, munching away on normal food and sneaking off to suck someone dry when the urge was overpowering. No humans left in the ranks made life on base easier to cope with for the leeches. Barricade idly wondered what would happen if one of them were mated to an Autobot.  _Would there be undeactivated energonsuckers, like Cybertron had harbored before?_

That's why Mikaela walked straight into camp. They would hear her heartbeat, the rush of blood through her veins and she smelled just like any other human female to them. He saw Mearing whip her head around, pale skin covered only by a grasskirt and halves of coconut shells, the thing staring hungrily at his mate.  _He mourned that he couldn't tear the still beating heart out of Mearing and eat it, because it was already still and silent in her chest, heaving with unnecessary breaths._

As one, they all turned, synchronized in a way that was nothing close to human behavior.

"Heya! I'm just here to visit." Mikaela beamed, waving an innocent greeting to the gathered crowd.

The once Decepticon Interrogator saw them all fight with their need for her blood, but it was a losing battle. She stood there, all innocent huge eyes and sweet smile and waited as they were trying not to just pounce and rip her to shreds in their desperation to get her blood inside them. A low growl was building in his vocalizer, hate deeper than anything he had ever felt before surging through his spark.

_The wretched vampires pounced._

So did Barricade, with a roar of anger, oral lubricant spittling out his wide open maw of wicked denta, guns whining with rage-driven charge.

 

*****

 

 

_Fire_

Barricade  _loved_  fire. The clean blue of a blowtorch, orange like his optics were these days, or bright yellow like the sun of this planet. Warm colors dancing, entrancing him.

Leeches burned  _nothing_  like that. Sickly green and queasy purple, that was the ghostly colors of the flames incinerating the bodies.  _Disgusting._

Yet when he looked at Mikaela, busy setting the torn up pieces of the leeches on fire to make sure they wouldn't put themselves back together, all he could feel was desire.

Somewhere, sometime, he might have considered it shameful and taboo to find the sight arousing.

_But that was way back when, and inconsequential in the present._  

Watching his mate, naked as the day she was born, burning his newfound enemies, was nothing but erotic. Back when he was just any other Decepticon, he probably would have found it distasteful to even think about an organic that way, but not now. His fully pressurized spike was a certain sign of the lust he felt for the girl and the actions so many would count as shameful.

It was ridiculous, really. As long as mechs had existed, they had enjoyed holidays in places where the climate allowed them to flare plating, even shedding some of it on occasion, and those little trips to paradise had always invited lust. Long-bonded conjuxes fragging like younglings, illicit affairs, getting overcharged and other vices under whatever sun the resort of choice was harbored.

This wasn't so different, not really. She was ancient in a way humans wouldn't be. He wasn't, he was middle-aged for a mech, at least before she changed him. But they were primitive in a way. He still had some of his guns, his scanners, but quite a few of his systems had been replaced by instincts, as if he really  _was_  the technimal he now turned into. She had  _never_  been truly civilised. Born in a time long before technology was more than wood, stone and a few metals crudely shaped, she had walked the Earth and adapted to fit in while still running on primitive instincts.

That's why they were perfectly designed to win the game of survival. Where humans relying on technology to detect a vampire, technology available to precious few special units, the two of them  _knew_  who was a leech and who wasn't. When the powers beyond explanation conspired to take the power in the dark hours and the humans were left blind, they saw, heard, scented and tasted the killers as they came. When mechs were in denial, having long forgotten the energonsuckers of Cybertron, beings extinct so long, they had turned into fairytale monsters, Barricade  _knew_  that an unholy bonding between a mech and an alien myth could bring about creatures that weren't supposed to exist.

And that was their advantage. When even the Prime wouldn't heed the warning, they could sharpen their fangs and claws, could seek out the hidden spots high on mountaintops, in the thick jungles, by deep rivers. He could stalk through moonlight, through rain with her, to find the best places to keep her under the open sky, to keep her with him, gone from the rest of the world, because the rest of the world didn't matter.

Barricade's musings were cut short when she languorously straightened from her task, every single part of the leeches on fire now. Her eyes burned with a predatory hunger aimed at him and he licked his lip-plates like a starving wolf looking at a newborn lamb.

_Only she wasn't a lamb_. 

Mikaela pounced, but he caught her. Barricade slammed her back against the trunk of a palm tree and she wrapped herself around him, angling her pelvis to let him enter her in one hard thrust.

_He_ was _going to take her somewhere safe, somewhere hidden. But they could indulge in a quickie first. Then he'd keep her gone._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tempting the Devil's heart, know your plan  
> To hold back the surge of Hell's living dead,  
> Through my eyes I see the world  
> Different than yours,  
> Different than anybody else,  
> No one else. 
> 
> Wandering alone, yeah,  
> And at night, vision's so blurry  
> With the heat steam from your body.  
> Sweat drips like kamikaze,  
> And at night, I am the warmest,  
> And at night, I know the best place  
> To keep you under starlight,  
> To keep you gone. 
> 
> Their bodies burned with a ghostly fire,  
> Lost island South Pacific desire.  
> Grass skirts and hula girls, yeah,  
> Cannibals of holocaust,  
> Shameful lust in paradise on holiday,  
> Sun and vice. 
> 
> Wandering alone, yeah,  
> And at night, vision's so blurry  
> With the heat steam from your body.  
> Sweat drips like kamikaze,  
> And at night, I am the warmest,  
> And at night, I know the best place  
> To keep you under starlight,  
> To keep you gone. 
> 
> Deep rivers, dark jungles in the rain,  
> Prowl mountaintops, primitives designed to win the game.
> 
> Wandering alone, yeah,  
> And at night, vision's so blurry  
> With the heat steam from your body.  
> Sweat drips like kamikaze,  
> And at night, I am the warmest,  
> And at night, I know the best place  
> To keep you under starlight,  
> To keep you gone.


End file.
